370 



streams and on the shores of the numerous lakes which are scattered over the province. So far as 

 I could ascertain, it arrived there early in May and soon commenced nidification. I seldom met 

 with it on the coast, but generally inland, and not consorting with other Sandpipers, and after 

 the breeding-season it does not appear to collect in flocks, as so many other Sandpipers do. Its 

 flight is swift and somewhat irregular, and in the early summer I frequently saw it performing 

 aerial evolutions at no great altitude. It runs swiftly, and may often be seen running on the 

 timber logs and on the pole fences, nodding its head and flirting its tail. When wounded it will 

 take to the water and swims with ease. Its note is a clear melodious whistle. 



Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway say (I. c.) that it arrives in Massachusetts late in April 

 "in small roving flocks, and for a while moves about in a brief and even sportive manner, flying 

 back and forth along and across the smaller streams, performing strange aerial evolutions, 

 seemingly more for its own enjoyment than in quest of food. As these birds move about — 

 and more especially when they meet other flocks of their own species — they give utterance 

 to their cheerful and lively whistle, which is loud and shrill, and not unlike the syllables 

 peet-ioeet several times repeated. Toward the close of the refrain the notes are lower and 

 the sound more plaintive. A little later in the season they separate into pairs along the banks 

 of smaller streams, and usually nest in freshwater meadows, or in low uplands not far from 

 water; occasionally they nest in uplands not far from the sea. Sometimes this bird is so 

 familiar as to make its nest within a garden, and not far from the house. In oue instance 

 Mr. Nuttall found its eggs in the strawberry-beds of a resident of Belmont, Mass., while young 

 and old familiarly fed on the margin of an adjoining duck-pond. 



"This species has a very characteristic habit of vibrating its tail and moving its head and 

 body, as if balancing itself, the head and tail beiug alternately depressed and elevated. When 

 excited, and anxious for the safety of its young, this vibratory motion is especially noticeable, 

 and is joined with plaintive cries of peet-weet-weet." It feeds on worms, insects, and small 

 mollusks, and during the winter is seen to frequent the sea-shore, following the retreating waves 

 and picking up its food like the Dunlin. It is also said to visit ploughed fields in search of 

 worms and insects of various kinds. 



Its breeding-range is extensive, as it has been found nesting from the extreme northern 

 portions of its range down to the southern limits of the United States. It is said to nest in 

 damp marshy places and in grass-fields, but I always found the nests on the borders of streams, 

 generally not far from the water. The nest is a mere depression in the ground, lined with grass- 

 bents or pieces of dry herbage, and tolerably well concealed. As a rule, the lining of the nest is 

 very scanty, but nests found by Audubon in Labrador were, he says, made of dry moss raised to 

 the height of several inches, and well finished within with slender grasses and feathers of the 

 Eider Duck, and were concealed under ledges of rocks. 



Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway say (Water-B. of N. Am. i. p. 304) that "the young 

 run about with remarkable ease and swiftness almost as soon as they are out of the shell. When 

 danger approaches they immediately, upon an alarm signal from their parents, run and hide 

 themselves, squatting close to the ground, and there remaining perfectly immovable, resembling a 

 small drab-coloured stone with a single streak of black down the middle. If the young bird finds 

 itself discovered, and an attempt is made to take it, it runs with great celerity, uttering the most 



